Did you know that on almost every day of the year, at least one member of the New York Yankee's all-time roster celebrates a birthday? The posts of the Pinstripe Birthday Blog celebrate those birthdays and offer personal recollections, career highlights, and trivia questions that will bring back memories and test your knowledge of the storied history of the Bronx Bombers.

January 25 – Happy Birthday Dale Mohorcic

This veteran reliever was acquired by the Yankees from Texas in a trade for fellow reliever Cecilio Guante, late in the 1988 regular season. Guante had begun that season as a favorite and frequent late-inning pitching choice of Yankee skipper Billy Martin. But Martin had gotten fired in late June of that year and replaced by Lou Piniella. Sweet Lou was not as sweet on Guante as Billy had been and quickly lost faith in him. Mohorcic had been a closer with Texas and the big right-hander had just put together his best year in 1987 with 16 saves and 7 victories. He had however, gotten off to a horrible start during the ’88 season and it was obvious that both teams were hoping simple changes of scenery would be the elixir these two right-handers needed to once again get late-inning outs. Unfortunately for both clubs and both players, that did not happen.

A native of Cleveland, Mohorcic won two games and lost two more for New York that September and then appeared in 32 games for the Yanks the following season, going 2-1 with two more saves. But his ERA went sky-high that second season in the Bronx and the Yanks released him. He than finished his career with Montreal in 1990.

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